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So umm.....hi. Let me explain....no, is too much. Let me sum up: I'm just coming out of the worst year of my life, complete with mental breakdown and taking a medical leave of absence from work, almost getting divorced, and all that good stuff. I've taken a LONG break from NF, for lots of reasons, but I miss my nerds TERRIBLY and I've decided it's time to come back. Plus, I'm trying something different this time. I've spent most of my adult life feeling like a failure, a fuckup, a worthless piece of sludge. I suffer from depression and ADHD, and so things that are simple for others are nearly impossible for me. While I don't necessarily compare myself to other people, I have in my mind this Ideal Person, and the kind of things this person does. I have wasted so much time comparing myself to this Person, falling short, and beating myself up for it. I've decided that it ends, NOW. I've decided to be the best Mir I can be, and that means embracing all the awesome things that make me Mir, while acknowledging my weaknesses but not hating myself for them. I'm not sure exactly how things work around here these days, and also I only decided yesterday to make a challenge, so here are my thoughts thus far: Main Quest: Love Thyself How am I going to accomplish this? I, errr....don't really know. What I've come up with so far is to ask myself two questions: Does this make my life easier? / What will make my life easier? Does this make me happier? / What will make me happier? The non easy/happy things are going out the window. I'm going to look at my life differently. I'm going to look at my SELF differently. I am simply not wired to be the Super Organizer that for some reason I've felt I should be. Instead, I'm wired to be fun, crazy, wild, creative, zany, loud, outgoing, etc etc etc. It's time to embrace me. It's time to be authentically Mir. Other things I'd like to accomplish, but I haven't decided the order/priority in which they fall (and certainly some of them are more than 4 week goals): start doing PT againgo back to gymmake good food choices/cook yummy food at hometake care of myself while at work (this includes things like actually taking a lunch, bringing food to eat instead of drinking coffee and eating candy all day, getting up from my desk once in a while, etc)get Etsy shop off the groundstart doing home improvement stuff again (painting, ugh)

Despite good intentions - as always - my last challenge also fizzled out. I had a pretty good first half, though, so that's something! And I was reminded of how good it feels to wake up to a clean kitchen counter, get out for at least a walk every day (which helped me stay on top of my podcast playlist, too!), be hydrated...things I'm still striving for! Part of the problem, I think, is that when other aspects of my life take priority, as they sometimes have to (or as I sometimes feel they have to - sometimes I need to think a bit more about my priorities, though!), I put my NF goals to the side for a bit and then struggle to pick them up again later. During this challenge I'll have a whirlwind week-long trip to the US and my thesis defense (and who knows what else might come up!) - it's been things like these that have often derailed past challenges. I need this challenge to be as flexible as possible but still have a goal I can work toward. So: three things. This is obviously nothing groundbreaking - it's a popular concept for getting shit done - but I think it's perfect for me at this point. The night before or the morning of each day, I'll pick three things that I'll absolutely get done that day. They can be big or small, an accomplishment in themselves or a step toward completing a larger project, related to any part of my life (work/health/relationship/fun, etc.), and maybe even a don't rather than a do (a day free of added sugar, for example). This means that on the days I'm preparing for my thesis defense, that can be one of my three things - rather than another thing I have to worry about on top of the goals I'm already trying to complete. On a Saturday without any plans, I can pick some bigger things; on a day where I know work is going to be crazy and then I have something else going on in the evening, I can pick smaller things that I can knock out over my lunch break. I'll compile a list for myself; although the things don't necessarily have to always be from the list, it'll be good to have an overview of recurring tasks and different projects I'm working on. A few examples: Monday is already going to be busy - Mondays are always busy at work, anyway, and there are a few different tasks I need to catch up on and think about on top of the usual crazyness, and then after work I'm heading into town so a friend can interview me as part of his PhD research. I might have to pick some smaller things to complete!

Hey Dudes, Man, it's been a long time since my last challenge! Kinda fell off the fitness wagon and had to run to catch up. Without further ado, here are my goals. 1. Get up and meditate for five minutes every weekday by at least 8am. I've been meaning to try to learn how to meditate for ages, and since I started university I've not been great at mornings. Double whammy. Grading Each weekday is worth 3.3%, if I accumulate: 90% 4 Wisdom, 1 Constitution. 80% 3 Wisdom 70% 2 Wisdom 2. Cut out junk food and increase the amount of fruits and veggies I eat, aiming for 5 portions a day. I've gotten into the habit of eating way too many sweets and fatty foods. No more! Grading For every week I eat no junk food at all, I get 20%. If I have a cheat day, 10%. If i cheat more than one day, NOTHING! 90% 2 Constitution, 1 Charisma 80% 2 Constitution 70% 1 Constitution 3. Complete the beginners body weight workout 3X per week. For every two weeks this happens, I gain 1 Strength. 4. Go to 2 new clubs/societies and socialize with new people. Trying to get out more and make new friends, but it's hard! For each of these I get 2 points for Charisma. Hoping to find some cool rebels to team up with on the road to awesome!

Hey everyone! So after taking a break from the challenges last time I am back and ready to get my act together once again. I spent the last six weeks taking things easy, as in I kept up my workout routine, ate some food (but didn't track anything) and pretty much just had a jolly good time. Well now I am back to have a jolly good time while making progress! Main Quest Start taking bulking seriously! I put a lot of effort into losing weight and for some reason just assumed that I would be able to bulk pretty easily. Just go back to eating a bunch of food while lifting weights right?!? Turns out it is harder than I thought... Between not getting enough protein, overestimating how much I eat, not remembering to bring enough food to work so that I am miserably pounding down food at night, it's a tough life eating well and still getting enough calories. Since most of my goals are about bulking, here are some stats to consider for my goals Age: 23 Height: 5'11" Weight: 170 Body Fat %: 12.5% Goal 1: Stick to the macros, this means tracking tracking tracking. Here is what I am thinking for my macros, based on eating about 3000cal/day (TDEE is about 2460) and using Lyle Mcdonald's suggestions (http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/muscle-gain/macronutrient-intake-for-mass-gains-qa.html) Protein: 220g (880cal) Carbs: 170g (680cal) Fat: 160g (1440cal) This will be judged based on how many days I successfully hit, or get very close to my macro goals. Goal 2: Add weight to my lifts! Here is what I want to get out of my lifts, these are all for the SL3x5 working sets... Squats 220lb -> 250lb Bench 135lb -> 160lb BB Row 160lb -> 175lb (I've done 160, but it had somewhat sloppy form, this is going to progress somewhat slowly while I fix that) OHP 90lb -> 110lb Deadlift 260lb -> 300lb These might be ambitious... so please correct me if you think that, but I see these numbers and all I can think is that there is no reason I can't do it... so I'm gonna do my damnedest to get it done. Goal 3: Get back to sleeping well! I got into a great sleep routine my first challenge here, and while it is still better than most, it isn't as good as it used to be. I want to get back in the habit of getting to bed early enough so that I am up and active when it is time to get to the gym. No more hitting the snooze button or staying up late watching It's Always Sunny. Going to judge this based on the number of mornings where I get out of bed at the time I am supposed to without feeling like I need another hour sleep. Life Quest I am working on creating my own iOS app that I am really excited about. My last challenge involved setting up the ground work for this, figuring out a name, starting design work, acquiring the tools I needed. Then in my time off from the challenges I started reading and educating myself on the iOS architecture and refining some of the design that I have done. For the month though I have been in the collecting underpants stage of the process though and that needs to stop! Life Goal: Dedicate 4 hours/week to working on my app, this can be all at once or spread out but I will dedicate at least that amount of time. This isn't a lot because it is just a side project, I have a full time job programming and a lot of social change I want to make in my life, but I don't want this project to fall to the wayside. 4 hours/week will get me started, it will get some code into the computer and make things start to happen. 6 weeks from now, when I have put in a solid days worth of work (not much I know, but you can do some cool things with 24 hour of programming) I will have something I can look at and make a new decision about how much effort I want to put into this project. I'll figure out points and stuff later...